226 OVER THE KARA-KASH RANGES [CHAI'. XIV.
keep for his own people. So, notwithstanding the previous orders, no yaks turned up in the morning. When the man saw that I was in earnest and that further delay was likely to involve him in more serious consequences than the voluminous objurgations to which Islam Beg and Niaz, the Chinese interpreter, had treated him already, the yaks were dragged out from the neighbouring glens. But we had lost two hours —a long time at that season when night falls so early in the narrow valleys.
At 10 a.m. we started up the Kasli stream, and after about two miles turned into a narrow glen known as Gez Jilga. When after a toilsome climb of close on three hours we had reached the Pom-tagh Pass, about 12,400 feet above the sea, a grand view opened to the east and south. It comprised the whole glacier-crested range from ` Murtagh ' on the extreme left to the hoary peaks which showed their heads above the glaciers closing the Karanghu-tagh Valley. No visible point in the glittering crest-line which filled about one-third of the horizon could be much under 20,000 feet, while quite a number of the peaks, as subsequent triangulation showed, reached 22,000 to 23,000 feet. Nearer to the south-west and west there rose a perfect maze of steep serrated ridges and steeple-like peaks. Embedded among them, but quite invisible lay the narrow valleys forming the grazing grounds of Nissa. I climbed a knoll on the water-shed ridge some 400 feet above the pass, where work with the plane-table and photo-theodolite kept us busy for a couple of hours. It was an ideal day for survey work ; scarcely a cloud lay on the horizon, and the air, with 50° F. in the shade, felt deliciously warm.
An extremely steep track, by which our ponies were led with difficulty, took us first along a bare rocky ridge and then down, at least 3,000 feet, by a narrow ravine to the Karagaz gorge. When we had reached its bottom by half-past four it was getting quite dusk between the high and precipitous
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